"So now what?" Druze asked. He felt himself smiling: What an odd feeling, a real smile.
Bekker let him go. "I've got to get out of here and think. I'll figure something out. Tonight, after your show, come up to my office. Even if they're watching me, they won't be inside the building. Call me before you leave and I'll come down and let you in at that side door by the ramp. If you look like you're unlocking the door, they'd never suspect…"
Philip George.
Bekker worried the problem all the way back to the hospital. They had to get to George quickly. He stopped at the secretary's desk in the departmental office.
"Lucy, do you have a class schedule?"
"I think…" The secretary pulled open a filing cabinet and dug through it, and finally produced a yellow pamphlet. She handed it to him. "Could you bring it back, it's the only one…"
"Sure," he said distractedly, flipping through the schedule. Pain flared in his hand, and he stopped and looked at it more carefully. He should bandage it…
"Lucy?" He went back to the secretary's desk. "Do we have any big Band-Aids around here? I've burned my thumb…"
"I think…" The secretary dug through her desk, found a box of bandages. "Let me see… Oh my God, Dr. Bekker, how did you do this…?"
He let her bandage it, then walked down the corridor to his office, unlocked it and settled behind his desk. Law school, George… he glanced at his watch. One-thirty. George: Basic Torts, MWF 1:10-3:00.
He would be in class. Bekker picked up the phone, called the law school office and twittered at the woman who answered: "Phil George? In class? I see," he said, putting disappointment in his voice. "This is a friend of his over at Hamline, I'm just leaving town, terrible rush, we were supposed to meet one of these nights, and I'm trying to get my schedule together… Do you know if he has classes or night meetings the rest of the week?… No, I can't really wait, I've got a seminar starting right now, and it runs late, then I've got a plane. Tried to call Phil's wife, nobody home… Yes, I'll hold…"
The law secretary dropped the receiver on her desk and Bekker could hear her walking away. A minute passed, then another, and then she was back: "Yes, tomorrow night, seven to ten, he has preparation for moot court. The other nights are clear here at the school."
"Thank you very much," he said, still twittering. "You've been very kind. What is your name?… Thank you very much, Nancy. Oh, by the way, where is the moot-court prep going to be?… Okay, thanks again."
He hung up and leaned back in his chair, making a steeple of his fingers. George would be working late. That could be useful. What'd he drive? It was a red four-wheel-drive of some kind, a Jeep. He could cruise by George's house later on. He lived in Prospect Park and probably left the car in the street… • • • Druze was sure that Bekker was using, but he wasn't sure what it was. An ocean of cocaine flowed through the theater world, but Bekker wasn't a cokehead; or if he was, there was something else involved. At times he was flying, his beautiful face reflecting an inner joy, a freedom; at other times, he was dark, reptilian, calculating.
Whatever it was, it moved through him quickly. He'd been manic when Druze arrived at the hospital. Now he was like ice.
"He'll be out tomorrow night," Bekker said. "I know that's not much time… He drives a red Jeep Cherokee. Fire-engine red. He'll be parked behind Peik Hall."
He explained the rest of it and Druze began shaking his head. "Happy accident? What kind of shit is that?"
"It's the only way," Bekker said calmly. "If we try to pull him out, set him up, we could spook him. If he thinks we might come after him… I can't just call him, cold, and ask him to meet me down at the corner. He's got to be a little afraid-that somebody might figure him out, that the killer might come after him…"
"I just wish there was some other way," Druze said. He looked around and realized he was in some kind of examination room. Bekker had met him at a side door, normally locked, and led him down a dimly lit hallway to a red metal door, and had opened it with a key and pulled him inside. The walls were lined with stainless-steel cabinets, a stainless cart sat against one wall, and a battery of overhead lights hung down at the center of the room. Their voices ricocheted around the room like Ping-Pong balls. The room was cold. "It seems pretty… uncertain."
"Look, the hardest thing to investigate is a spur-of-the-moment thing, between strangers. Like when you did that woman in New York. How can the cops find a motive, how can they find a connection? If you try to set something up, it leaves traces. If you just go there, where he is, and do it…"
"You know he'll be there?" Druze asked.
"Yes. He's got the moot court. He plays the part of the judge, he has to be there."
"I guess it's got to be done," Druze said, running his fingers back through his hair. "Jesus, I don't like it. I like things that can be rehearsed. Your wife, that was no problem. This…"
"It's the best way, believe me," Bekker said intently. "Look for his car. It should be in the parking lot right behind the building. There's a lot of foliage around the lot-I checked. If he parks there, try to get close to the car, let the air out of one of his tires. That'll give the students time to get away from the building and it'll keep him busy changing the tire while you come up on him…"
"Not bad," Druze admitted. "But God damn, Michael, I've got the feeling that we've kicked the tarbaby. One foot's stuck and now we've got to stick the other one in, trying to get the first one loose…"
"This is the end and we've got to do it, don't you see? For your own safety," Bekker said. "Get him, dump him…"
"That bothers me, too. Dumping him. If I just whacked him, and walked away, who's to know? But if I have to take him out to Wisconsin… Jesus, I could get stopped by conservation officers looking for fish, or who knows what?"
Bekker shook his head, holding Druze with his eyes. "If we kill him and leave him, they'll know from his eyes that he must be Stephanie's lover-why else would his eyes be cut? But that'll throw the serial-killer pattern right out the window. And how would the killer be able to find the guy? They're already suspicious, and if we killed him and left him in the lot, they'd be all over me."
"We could skip the eyes…"
"No." Bekker was cold as stone. He stepped close to Druze and gripped his arm above the elbow. Druze took a half-step back, chilled by the other man's frigid eyes. "No. We cut the eyes. You understand."
"Jesus, okay," Druze said, pulling back.
Bekker stared at him for a moment, judging his sincerity. Apparently satisfied, he went on. "If we dump him somewhere remote-and I know the perfect place-nobody's going to find him. Nobody. The cops might suspect that he was Stephanie's lover, but they won't know if he ran because he was afraid, or because he was the killer, or if he's dead, or what. They just won't know…"
Druze left the way he'd come, through the side door. Bekker walked back toward his office, rubbing his chin, thinking. Druze was reluctant. Not in rebellion, but unhappy. He'd have to consider that…
In the elevator, he glanced at his watch. He had time…
"Sybil."
Was she asleep? Bekker leaned over the bed and pulled her eyelids up. Her eyes were looking at him, dark and liquid, but when he let go of her eyelids, she closed them again. She was awake, all right, but not cooperating.
He sat beside her bed. "I have to look in your eyes as you go, Sybil," he said. He could feel himself breathing a little harder than usuaclass="underline" his experiments had that effect on him, the excitement…
"Here we are…" He clapped a strip of tape over her lips, rested the heel of his other hand on her forehead and pulled her eyelids up with his index and ring fingers. Her eyes open, he leaned into her line of vision and said, quietly, "I've taped your mouth so you can't breathe, and now I'll pinch your nose, until you smother… Do you understand? It shouldn't hurt, but I would appreciate a signal if you see… anything. Move your eyes up and down as you go through to the other side, do you understand? If there is another side?"